Transfer of Case to Downtown Court Raises Ire

Citing security concerns at the Van Nuys Courthouse, already burdened with a seven-defendant gang-related murder trial, Los Angeles’ top criminal judge transferred another high-security murder case downtown Tuesday, drawing criticism from prosecutors.

“The Valley has the right to sit in judgment of crimes committed in the Valley,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Janice Maurizi. More than 100 alleged victims and witnesses will now be forced to drive downtown, Maurizi said.

Michael Adelson, a defense lawyer in the case, said the change is justified. Prosecutors oppose it in part because downtown jurors are less likely to convict, Adelson said.

“They’re upset, in my opinion, because we’re getting a downtown jury, i.e., we’re going to have blacks on the jury,” Adelson said. “The jury pool in San Fernando and Van Nuys is very homogenous, as in milk.”

The defendants, Etienne Moore, LaCedrick Johnson and Shashonee Solomon, are black. They are accused of two dozen follow-home robberies, murder for hire and capital murder, including the 1993 killing of Laurie Myles, 37, who was shot as she waited to pick up her daughter from a Bible study. Maurizi and Deputy Dist. Atty. Edwin Greene, the prosecutors, said they prefer Valley juries, not because of race but because conviction rates have historically been higher there than in other parts of the county.

Superior Court Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt had been hearing motions and ruling on the admissibility of some 35,000 pages of evidence in the mostly circumstantial case for years.

Last month, Wiatt set the trial date for Feb. 1 in his court. Then last Friday, prosecutors said, Wiatt surprised them by announcing that because the trial will last six to nine months, he would be required to send it back to supervising criminal Judge Larry Fidler for reassignment.

Through a court spokeswoman, Fidler said the Sheriff’s Department had requested the transfer, saying bailiffs would be overtaxed if forced to handle another high-risk case in the Valley while the death-penalty murder case of seven alleged members of the notorious Asian Boyz street gang is ongoing.

During a 10-minute hearing Tuesday, Fidler assigned the case to Superior Court Judge J. D. Smith.

Sheriff’s Lt. Eric Smith, who oversees security in the western portion of the county, said he met with Fidler on Monday after hearing the case might be transferred. Smith said there are not enough bailiffs assigned to Valley courts to provide the level of security the Myles case requires, because the Asian Boyz trial must be staffed by seven bailiffs.

“We definitely would have had to augment our present staff,” Smith said. “It just made sense” to transfer it downtown.

Miffed prosecutors complained that Fidler did not allow a hearing to investigate the issue of security, which goes beyond the number of bailiffs in the courtroom.

Greene said the Los Angeles Police Department and investigators with the district attorney’s office will be protecting half a dozen witnesses, at least one of whom has been targeted by the defendants. Greene noted that a judge in 1996 rebuffed an earlier request to move the case downtown, ruling in part that a transfer would cause a hardship to victims and witnesses.

Smith said that if the case were returned to the Valley, the department would have come up with the additional bailiffs needed.

“It’s not our decision,” Smith said. “As the people who are primarily responsible for the security in and around the courthouse, we provide our input to the judges and they take it for what it’s worth.”